A man who starved a litter of puppies and filmed a sick video of himself torturing a rat to train his dog to kill has been allowed to keep pets.
Animal welfare officers have slammed Liam Fair‘s sentence after he was banned from keeping animals – apart from the four dogs and four ferrets in his care – for 12 months. The 21-year-old was sentenced at Perth Sheriff Court on Wednesday.
The court heard how Fair, from Crieff, filmed himself swinging a pet rat by its tail to encourage his dog to kill it in October 2022. The sickening scene, which was shared onto his Snapchat, shows bragging Fair picking the rat up and hurling it around by the tail.
He then goes on to smash the rat into his dog’s face in order to provoke the canine into the fatal attack. The clip was reported to the Scottish SPCA (SSPCA), who ruled that the rat suffered severe psychological and physical suffering during the incident.
The charity also received screenshots taken from Facebook where Fair publicly admitted feeding his dog live rats as a method of training his dog for pest control purposes. Evil Fair’s home was raided by officers, where, on arrival, a litter of five emaciated puppies were discovered on the brink of death and walking in their own filth.
In a statement, the animal welfare charity said: ‘“We are devastated by the sentence Fair received. The sentence means he has been allowed to keep the four dogs and four ferrets currently in his care. “
Fair admitted a series of cruelty and neglect charges at Perth Sheriff Court in September last year. He pleaded guilty to causing unnecessary suffering to the litter of puppies, causing an animal fight to take place and failing to protect his animals from disease.
An inspector for the charity added: “Due to the severity of the concerns within the footage, multiple previous visits, and a vet statement raising specific concerns, it was deemed necessary to gain a warrant. We attended the property which had wooden boards covering two windows at the front of the house.
“When walking into the flat there was a strong smell of urine. The flat can only be described as a slum with minimal personal possessions. Jax, a black lurcher type was loose within the premises along with Jock, a white lurcher type and a tan coloured staffie type dog. Within the sitting room there was a large puppy pen set up holding five young puppies.
“Veterinary reports showed the five puppies were very small and significantly underweight for their age. The puppies were all weak and wobbly on their legs due to being severely undernourished. They were also suffering from severe diahorrea which can result in tiny puppies losing body condition very quickly. If this had continued much longer it would have resulted in dehydration and collapse, possibly death.”
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